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You often hear immigration critics argue that we let in more immigrants than any country in the world and therefore are already more generous than anyone else. Leaving aside the mistaken idea that immigration is purely an act of generosity (start with this excellent Economist article for example), is it actually true that we do better than anyone else? Well we do have higher numbers of immigrants than anyone else. The following table shows the average national inflow of immigrants, in thousands, from 2001-2010 from OECD data. The U.S. ranks highest with around a million immigrants moving here each year.

However, given the size of the U.S. this large number of immigrants is not so surprising. The U.S. has a population of 300 million, so if you instead look at average annual inflow as a percent of population the story is very different.

Around a million immigrants a year is a very small percent of a 300 million population. Now instead of ranking first we rank 23rd, between Portugal and Israel. Canada manages a rate that is more than double ours, and several countries manage over 1% a year. Of course, this doesn't account for immigrant outflows. But a similar story is told when you look at the stock of immigrants as a percent of the population.

Now we rank 12th, below Belgium and above France. This is makes us look somewhat better compared to percent of immigrant inflows, but still far from the top rank that raw numbers suggest. Again we fall far short of Canada, and other countries at the top with immigrants constituting over 20% of their population.

There are two important lessons from this data. First, when you consider the size of our population, we are not the most immigrant friendly country in the world. Australia, Switzerland, Canada, and other wealthy countries do a far better job than we do by more appropriate measures. This also suggests that we are not doomed to become a poor country if we move to higher rates of immigration.

Are immigrant populations like this untenable in the U.S.? The data does not suggest this is the case. Immigrants make up over 20% of the population in New York, California, and New Jersey. These states also happen to rank 3rd, 10th, and 16th by median income.

Instead of 1 million immigrants a year, these numbers suggest we could be letting in as many as 3 million a year and we would still not rank in the top 5. If we want to actually be the most immigrant friendly country in the world we're going to need to do even better than that.

I’m an economist at Moody's Analytics, where I cover labor markets and other aspects of the U.S. economy. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and do…

I’m an economist at Moody's Analytics, where I cover labor markets and other aspects of the U.S. economy. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of my employer, Moody’s Analytics, its parent company (Moody’s Corporation) or its affiliates. In addition, and all the other usual blogging caveats apply. I can be reached at adam dot r dot ozimek at gmail dot com.